Craig Ellwood
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Craig Ellwood (April 22, 1922–May 30, 1992) was an influential Los Angeles-based modernist architect whose career spanned the early 1950s through the mid-1970s. Although untrained as an architect, Ellwood fashioned a persona and career through equal parts of a talent for good design, self-promotion and ambition. He was recognized professionally for fusing of the formalism of Mies van der Rohe with the informal style of California modernism.
Ellwood was born Jon Nelson Burke in Clarendon, Texas. Along with many others in the 1920s Ellwood's family moved west, following Route 66, finally settling in Los Angeles in 1937. There, Ellwood, as Johnnie Burke, attended Belmont High School, where has was class president before graduating in 1940. In 1942 Ellwood and his brother Cleve both joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. Ellwood served as a B-24 radio operator, based with Cleve in Victorville, California until his discharge in 1946.
After his discharge, Burke returned to Los Angeles and set up a company with his brother Cleve and two friends from the war, the Marzicola brothers, one of whom had a contractor's license. The four men called their firm 'Craig Ellwood' after a liquor store on Beverly Boulevard. Shortly afterward, in 1951, Burke legally changed his name to Ellwood. Picking up the methods and skills of the construction trade through these ventures, Ellwood became increasingly involved in design and architecture, resulting in Ellwood's first commissions, all for residences.
Ellwood established 'Craig Ellwood Design' in 1951. There Ellwood would provide the commissions and the vision, and it was up to USC-trained architect Robert Theron 'Pete' Peters, and later others, to provide the technical realization, drawings and the required sign-off of a licensed architect. Early projects included Case Study House 16 in 1952. The designs were well received by both the trade and potential clients, often receiving favorable coverage in influential publications like John Entenza's Arts & Architecture, often arranged for by Ellwood personally. Thus the firm received a growing stream of both residential and commercial commissions, and Ellwood's style matured to fully embrace the concepts put forth by International Style architects, particularly Mies van der Rohe.
By the late-1950s, though not a licensed architect, Ellwood was nonetheless a sought-after university lecturer on the topic, eventually giving a series of talks at Yale University.
Though Ellwood's office expanded with the size and number of his commissions, it was never a particularly profitable enterprise. It continued through the mid-1970s, with several notable projects, including the master plan for the Rand Corporation's headquarters in Santa Monica, California, a number of Xerox and IBM offices, and the trademark "bridge building" dramatically spanning an arroyo and roadway at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Some sources have now re-credited this building to Ellwood's lead draftsman, James Tyler, who had also worked for Mies. The practice closed in 1977 and Ellwood retired to Italy to focus on painting and restoring a farm house near Ambra, Italy. Ellwood died in 1992 in Italy.
[edit] Significant projects
- Hale House, Beverly Hills, California, 1949
- Case Study House 16 (Salzman House), Bel Air, California, 1951-53
- Courtyard Apartments, Hollywood, California, 1952-53
- Case Study House 17 (Hoffman House), Beverly Hills, California, 1954-56
- Case Study House 18 (Fields House), Beverly Hills, California, 1955-58
- Smith House, Los Angeles, California, 1955
- Hunt House, Malibu, California, 1955
- South Bay Bank, Los Angeles, California, 1956
- Carson-Roberts Office Building, West Hollywood, California, 1958-60
- Daphne House, Hillsborough, California, 1960-61
- Scientific Data Systems, various buildings and offices, El Segundo and Pomona, California, 1966-69
- Max Palevsky House, Palm Springs, California, 1968
- Charles and Gerry Bobertz Residence, San Diego, California, 1953
